The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone has been hard at work on an adaptation of the X-Men spin-off New Mutants for months, and now he's getting a hand from some former collaborators. THR reports that screenwriting duo Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who previously penned The Fault in Our Stars and The Spectacular Now, are working on the New Mutants script.
The screenwriting team's teen-centric credits make them a good fit for the film, which producer Simon Kinberg previously said has "YA vibe". The film follows a young group of misfit mutants coming to terms with their abilities, and the report states that Neustadter and Weber are working closely with Boone on the script. While details are scarce on the story at the moment, Boone previously teased just which mutants we can expect to make an appearance, including Wolfsbane, Magik, Sunspot, Danielle Moonstar, Mirage, and Cannonball. They'll also be joined by Professor X and, if early reports are to be believed, Alexandra Shipp's young Storm, who was introduced in X-Men: Apocalypse.
20th Century Fox has been hard at work on the next phase of their mutant universe for a while now. Facing down the barrel that is the end of Hugh Jackman's two-decade run as Wolverine, and reaching the end of their contracts with their First Class triumverate -- Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender -- the studio has been actively seeking out the next team of heroes to fulfill unwavering audience demands for superhero action. Enter Deadpool, the cast of young mutants introduced in Apocalypse, and soon, New Mutants.
For a while there it seemed that Channing Tatum's Gambit would lead the charge in the post-Wolverine mutant-verse, but it's notable, and perhaps not coincidental, that this news comes the day after we learned that Doug Liman officially dropped off Gambit movie (jumping over to Warner Bros. Justice League Dark). It's only the latest in a series of delays and shuffles, and it's possible that the long-developed film about the card-slinging Cajun may end up a casualty of shifting priorities.
New Mutants doesn't have a release date yet, but back in May, Kinberg told us they were eyeing a 2017 start of production.
